What you may call a slow news day I call an opportunity to take a deep dive into regulations. Essentially these changes highlight things that have for all intensive purposes been changed. We all voted for the General Secretary this elections, this essentially formalises them at the upcoming OGM.
Read below the guild press release to get an idea of the three changes and information for the upcoming OGM on the 23rd of October, rumour has it there will be free icecream.
General Overview
The 105th Guild Council has approved via circular and by absolute majority the following changes to the General Guild Regulations made under statute twenty.
According to the regulations, changes to voting membership must be approved at an ordinary general meeting of the Guild. The other changes may be redebated at an ordinary meeting if 15 members of the Guild give notice within 14 days of the date of posting on the noticeboard (9/10/18).
There is an already scheduled OGM for the 23rd of October which falls within this 14-day notice period. If you would like to review the remaining changes, please email Jacob Fowler at [email protected].
Proposed Changes
Overall Regulations Reasoning
The existing references to these positions will remain until the full regulations can be moved by council and subsequently approved by Senate. The Senate has advised the Guild that the changes to the rest of the regulations will be done in the early new year at the same time as the wider university legislative review. References to positions that no longer exist will either be filled by their replacing position (in the case of general secretary) or be left vacant (in the case of sports council president).
The change to the voting membership has been done in consultation with the current sports council president. As this position is not within the remit of the Guild’s operations since the annexation of UWA Sports Inc. from the Guild as well as the method of election, it has been recommended that this position no longer have a vote or be present on council. For reference, the method of election stipulated in 3.1.2(f) of the Regulations states “the student member of the UWA Sports Council who has served on that council for the longest time.”
The decision to merge Secretary and Treasurer to become the General Secretary has been done in consultation with the current Treasurer and Secretary. To rectify the reduction of the Guild Executive from 4 to 3 people as a result, the Chair of Guild Council is becoming a member of the executive. This decision was made as Chair is the most appropriate position to elevate to executive as they will be able to aid the executive in the governance and compliance aspects of the Guild’s operations and assist in the maintenance of the Statute Book and Policy Books (which are co-shared responsibilities with the General Secretary).
Joshua Cahill